nication with an ambassador: and in the courts of Rome, France and Spain, the ministers never make themselves so particular with the ambassadors, as to go and dine with them, unless they are invited on some extraordinary occasions. Wicquefort. *NOTE. The salaries of public ministers varied much under the confederation. At first no fixed compensation was allowed; but in October 1779 a salary of £2500 was established for the ministers in France, and of £1000 for the secretaries, in full for services (and expenses. This rate, greater than the present remuneration, continued till '84, when Congress resolved that the salary of a minister should not exceed 9000 dollars; but it does not appear that an outfit was annexed. The confederation generally paid their ministers better than is now done; for the expense of living in Europe, particularly on the continent, has increased at least one half the last forty years. We have still remaining a report of the Secretary of Foreign Affairs on the expenses of his department in 1782. Lyman. "Dr Franklin has a part of Mr Chaumont's house at Passy, he keeps a chariot and pair, and three or four servants, and gives a dinner occasionally to the Americans and others. His whole expense, as far as I can learn, is very much within his income. Mr. Adams lives in lodgings; keeps a chariot and pair, and two men servants. He has hitherto retained a private secretary, who will, in the absence of Mr Dana, it is presumed, be paid by Congress. I have lately heard that Mr Adams was about to take a house. Mr Dana's salary, even if he should assume a public character in a country where the relative value of money is so high, that if I well informed, an elegant house may be hired for fifteen guineas a year, is very ample. Of Mr Jay's manner of living, I have been able to give no account, but I should conclude from the price of the necessaries of life in that part of Spain in which he lives, from the port, the court, and the people about it maintain, and above all, from its sitting in different parts of the kingdom, that to live in the same style with Dr. Franklin, his expenses must amount to neearly the double of theirs. But as every conjecture of this kind must be very uncertain, all I can do is to lay before congress the relative expense, as far as I can learn it, between the different places at which the ministers reside, taking Philadelphia for a common standard. Paris, if wine, clothing, and the wages of servants are included, is about twenty per cent cheaper than Philadelphia; Amsterdam, ten; and at Madrid, the expenses of a family are somewhat higher than at this place. But from the unsettled state of those who follow the court, their travelling equipage and charges must greatly enhance this expense. Congress will make their own deductions from these facts, after allowing for their inaccuracy. "Annual expense of the Department of Foreign Affairs, exclusive of contingencies:- 2d Under Secretary, Peter S. Du Ponceau. $4000 ....... 800 ..... 700 ....500 By the law of May 1810, the salaries of ministers were fixed at $9000, and of charges, at $4,500, exelusive of one year's salary in the shape of outfit. Points decided in the District Court of Pennsylvania, relative to the privilege claimed, as Chargé d'Affaires, in the case of T. d'Azambuja vs. Barrozo. March Term, Philadelphia, 1830. 99. The constitution of the United States having made it the duty of the President" to receive foreign ambassadors and other public ministers," it would appear, and, it has been judicially determined, that it has necessarially bestowed upon the executive branch of the federal government the exclusive right to judge of the credentials of the ministers so received, and that the other branches of the government are bound to regard them as ministers, so long as the President continues to treat them as such. Dist. Court, Phila. D'Azambuja vs. Barrozo. 100. When the commission of an ambassador is at an end, when he has finished the business on which he came, is recalled, dismissed, or is obliged to go away on any account whatever, his functions cease, but his privileges and rights do not expire at the same time; he retains them till he returns to his principal, to whom he is to make a report of his embassy. [returning minister only, that the defendant can claim privilege. ib. It is as a 101. The functions of a public minister in many cases cease, as upon the death of his own sovereign, or of him to whom he is sent, the termination of his mission in consequence of his having effected its object, his recall by his own government, or dismissal by that near which he resides, the moral death of his sovereign, or of him to whom he is sent, by abdication, whether it be voluntary or forced by revolution, by essential changes in the form of one of the two interested states; and, when his functions do cease, in any of these or in any other way whatever, the minister still remains entitled to his privileges and immunities, under the laws of nations. ib. 102. If a sovereign or state receive under the public faith the minister of another sovereign or state, and afterwards deeming it for the interest of the country or himself, to receive and recognize another, as the minister of a rival sovereign or party, that may have obtained possession of the government of the foreign nation, or, if such sovereign or state think proper to assert that another government exists de facto, or de jure, in the minister's country; is such received minister of the former recognized government or sovereign, ipso facto stripped of his quality and privileges? are his person, his property, and the archives of his mission, previously the property of his sovereign and government, subjected to the jurisdiction of the courts of justice of the country? The affirmative of these questions has been contended. for, as the necessary result of the position, that the inviolability of foreign ministers is founded upon the general principle, that they represent their sovereign; and it is said in the case before the court, Don Miguel being acknowledged King of Portugal, the defendant represents him, Don Miguel, and of course cannot assert his privilege against his constituent. The institution of this suit is said to be evidence that Don Miguel claims the property in question, or, at all events, that he has waived the privilege of the defendant through his authorized Agent the plaintiff. 103. A foreign minister is not to be ill used by way of reprisal; for a prince using violence against a public minister commits a crime which is not to be revenged by an imitation of it. ib. 104. When a civil war exists in a nation, the obligation of observing the laws of war is absolute and indispensable to both parties, and, the same which the law of nations obliges all nations to observe between each other. Although foreign states will not intefere as a general rule in such quarrels, yet if a nation or sovereign thinks proper to do so, there is no law to prevent it; and having received and recognized the ambassadors of one party, the same law of nations which regulates the intercourse between the rival factions or princes may not unfairly be presumed to apply so far to the intercourse between a foreign state and one of the parties, as to protect a received minister within the jurisdiction of the government receiving him, in the privileges secured to diplomatic agents. ib. 105. If by any unforeseen event by which a minister's functions may be suspended or cease, some of which we have enumerated, including dismissal by the government or sovereign near which he resides, he ceased to enjoy on that account the exterritoriality or inviolability due to his character, it may well be questioned whether, in cases of danger arising from revolutions or from the perfidious character of a particular sovereign, men of high standing would be willing to submit their fortunes and their persons to the changes and dangers of war, or the caprice or perfidy of such a monarch. ib. 106. The grounds of the judgement of the court are briefly these:-We are satisfied that the defendant was received and recognized in a diplomatic character by our government; that he continued to be so recognized until the second October, 1829; that our government detained the plaintiff more than a year before he was received and recognized as the chargé d'affaires of Portugal; that the executive having given defendant a passport as a returnning minister, must have so regarded him; that we have no evidence from our government that he was deprived of his privileges by Don Miguel, if that monarch had the power to do so, nor that Don Miguel authorized this suit; that the act of plaintiff in bringing the suit in his own name, as chargé d'affaires of Portugal, does not ipso facto divest the defendant of the privi leges attached to him as a returning minister, recognized by the president, and as protected by the passport, issued under the authority of the United States; and, consequently, that the defendant is entitled to his claim of privilege, under the law of nations and the act of congress of the thirtieth of April 1790, and, consequently, to be discharged from the process issued against him. ib. Case of the United States, vs. Juan Galberto de Ortega. Circuit Court, United States, Philadelphia, October Session, 1825. [EXTRACT.] 107. This is a prosecution instituted by the United States for the purpose of vindicating the law of nations, and of the United States, offended as is charged, in the person of a foreign minister, (Mr Salmon,) by an assault committed on him by the defendant. It is a case which cannot fail to be highly interesting to the defendant, and to our government. To the former on account of the punishment which might be the consequence of a conviction; and to the latter, because the government of theUnitedStates, like that of all civilized nations, is bound to afford redress for the violation of those privileges and immunities which the law of nations confers upon foreign ministers, and which are consecrated by the practice of the civilized world: a neglect or refusal to perform this duty, might lead to retaliation upon our own ministers abroad, and even to war. 108. It has been insisted that, by waiving his privilege, in becoming a voluntary witness, he has, himself, violated the law of nations and his duty to his sovereign. If this be so, that is a matter to be settled by them. We have nothing to do with it. It deprives him neither of his competency nor of his credibility. 109. That this act amounted to an assault, admits of not the slightest doubt, and brings the case within the provisions of the act of congress, provided Mr Salmon was a foreign minister, which is the point to be considered. 110. Was Mr Salmon a foreign minister at the time the alleged offence was committed? (the judge here recapitulated the evidence of Mr Salmon's official character, and then proceeded.) The counsel for the defendant have gone into a rigid examination of the credentials of Mr Salmon. They deny that any thing short of credentials, emanating from the sovereign, or from some department of his government, charged to perform duties of this nature, could constitute him a minister; and that, even if the appointment of minister under the constitutional government of Spain, was sufficient, it became void, by the revolution, which restored the king to his former power, and rendered a re-appointment necessary. 111. If these were questions fit for judicial inquiry and decision, we should say that the appointment of a chargé d'affaires by a foreign minister, upon his retiring from the station to which he had been appointed, is usual in practice, and, if he be recognized as such by that branch of the government which is authorized to receive ministers, and with which he is to transact the business of his own sovereign, his character of minister is unquestionable. And further, that if after the constitutional government of Spain terminated, a re-appointment, or a recognition by the king, of the public character of this gentleman, were necessary, still as he is found, after a lapse of about two years, the recognized minister of Spain by our government, we ought to presume that his sovereign has done all that he thought necessary to clothe him with that character. 112. But the conclusive answer to these arguments, is, that these are matters of state, with which courts of justice have nothing to do. The constitution of the United States having vested in the president the power to receive ambassadors and other public ministers, has necessarily bestowed on that branch of government, not only the right, but the exclusive right, to judge of the credentials of the ministers so received; and so long as they continue to be recognized and treated by the president as ministers, the other branches of the government are bound to consider them as such. If courts of justice could sit in judgment upon the decision of the executive, in reference to the public character of a foreign minister, and by pronouncing him unduly appointed, or improperly recognized, deprive him of the privileges of a minister, what an extroardinary anomaly would such an interference present to the world? 113. The individual, who should be placed in this predicament, would, for all the purposes of his own or this government, be a minister, the representative of his sovereign, authorized to transact the business with which he is charged, and to bind his sovereign, whilst acting in obedience to his orders; and yet he would be no minister in the view of the judiciary, and, of course, not entitled to the protection due to that character: in other words, a public minister, without the privileges and immunities of one. For notwithstanding this judicial interference he would still continue to be a minister as long as the president should continue to recognize him as such, and no judgment of a court of justice could deprive him of that character, altho' it should withold from him the sanctity appertaining to it. Besides, if it belongs to courts of justice to meddle with these matters, and, looking beyond the acts and conduct of the president, to decide a person recognized by him to be a minister, to be no minister, surely that branch of government ought to possess all the lights to guide their judgment which are possessed by the president, and should consequently be empowered to call for, and expose to public view, the archives of state, and the correspondence of the executive of this nation with foreign nations, in relation to the subject on which the decision is to be made. 114. The principles which have been stated, are those which governed this court in Liddle's case, decided in 1807, in which it was stated that the certificate of the secretary of state, that the person claiming to be a chargé d'affaires, was received and recognised as such by the executive of this government, was the best evidence which could be given of that fact. The only proper enquiry, in short, in cases of this nature, is, has the person claiming to be a foreign minister been received and recognized as such by the ex |